Hello, my name is Anwar. I am 27 years old. I am a local level 7 guide. About myself.
I have lived all my life in a small Russian village. My nationality is Turkish. My ancestors were repressed from the Caucasus to central Asia, and after my parents had to leave from there. It so happened that a Turkish boy grew up in a Russian village.
I have always been kind and helpful, and I liked helping people. To tell something useful and interesting. Like those people in tv. But they traveled the world and they had something to tell, but I did not. In general, I realized that being a guide in the village is a bad idea, it turned out that everyone already knows everything. And to be honest, a couple of times I myself had to ask for directions, because I got lost.
As time went. I grew up. Graduated from college. And I dreamed about traveling, but of course I did not have money. And I traveled on google maps. I discovered interesting places, looked at photos and thought that someone lives in these interesting places, and I live where I live. But once I understood. I love traveling and I like to tell people something interesting, so why not combine these things. And I went abroad.
For the first time in my life, I was in another country. I was 23 years old. In another country, imagine. This is a completely different life, other people, another story, another culture. It is amazing how much we are all different and at the same time similar.
It was exciting, I was not at all happy. I came to Turkey. I already knew the language, the country is very rich in history. I could only find a job as a guide. What could be easier, really !? To my regret, it turned out that it is not so simple and certain knowledge is needed. Not a problem, and I got a souvenir seller. A worthy replacement. In my defense, I want to say that I sometimes told tourists how to get to the beach.
As a seller, I accidentally found out a local guide about the program and began to answer questions, add photos and evaluate places I visited. Then I just spent time and did not understand the significance of this. I did not give up trying to work as a guide and returned a year later. And I did it! I met tourists at the airport and drove to hotels, on the bus and with a microphone in my hands. I told them about the country in which they flew on vacation. About their culture, customs, how people live and earn their living, history and myths. I was happy.
I worked and enjoyed life. And so I received a letter. It was a report on my work in the program , local guide ,.
I could not believe my eyes. Thousands of people looked at my photos, received answers to their questions, and only because I was spending time. Then I really got interested. I began to constantly go into my account and add any information that I could.
Since I work as a guide, I often visited different hotels. Therefore, most of the information I left was about hotels. It is very nice to receive letters of gratitude for leaving a review or rating. It’s a pity of course that I do not have millions of views. Some do not exceed a dozen at all. But for me this is not a reason to stop. Even if my information helps one person, it will already give me joy.
From the moment I became a local guide, I have been adding information about six different countries. These are hundreds of photos with over one hundred and twenty thousand views. Thousands of views reviews and ratings. I visited hundreds of places, dozens of cities. Our world is huge and wonderful, millions of people around the world dream of seeing it with their own eyes, and I have a small opportunity to help these people thanks to the local guide program.
I want to say thanks to your team. You are very creative people and professionals. You were able to unite millions of people and inspire them to help each other.
P.S .: the whole text was translated by Google translator. Special thanks to them.
P.S.S .: I really hope to get on Connect Live 2020
P.S.S.S .: after writing this letter, doubts arose about my writing abilities. Thank you for that too.